William C. Durant |
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Wikipedia: William C. Durant
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Biography
The following section is an excerpt from Wikipedia's Automotive Industries page on 27 August 2019, text available via the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
William Crapo "Billy" Durant was a leading pioneer of the United States automobile industry, who created a system in which a company held multiple marques - each seemingly independent, with different automobile lines - bound under a unified corporate holding company. Durant, along with Frederic L. Smith, co-founded General Motors, as well as Chevrolet with Louis Chevrolet. He also founded Frigidaire.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Durant was the son of William Clark Durant and Rebecca Folger Crapo, who was born to a wealthy Massachusetts family of French descent. His mother, Rebecca, was the daughter of Michigan governor Henry H. Crapo. William dropped out of high school to work in his grandfather's lumberyard. He started out as a cigar salesman in Flint, Michigan, and eventually moved to selling carriages.
In 1886, Durant partnered with Josiah Dallas Dort and founded Flint Road Cart Company eventually transforming $2,000 in start-up capital into a $2-million company with sales worldwide. By 1890, the Durant-Dort Carriage Company, based in Flint, had become a leading manufacturer of horse-drawn vehicles and by the start of the 20th century, was the largest in the US.
Durant was highly skeptical of automobiles, feeling that the bad smell of burnt fuel, along with the engines' loud sounds, made them inherently dangerous to the point where Durant would not let his daughter ride in one. By 1900, public outcry over weak government regulation of gasoline-powered horseless carriages was significant. Durant noticed the general publics' anger at this situation, and rather than relying on government regulations to improve their safety, he saw it as an opportunity to create a company which could improve the safety of this new class of transportation.
To begin this massive endeavour, Durant first set out to purchase Buick, then, a local car company with few sales and large debts.
Durant conceived the modern system of automobile dealer franchises.
| Date | Article | Author/Source |
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| 2 June 1916 | DURANT SUCCEEDS NASH. | The New York Times |
| 15 November 1927 | HUGE AUTO MERGER PLANNED BY DURANT William C. Durant, President of Durant Motors, who was largely responsible for the organization of the General Motors Corporation, is described in reports circulated in Wall Street yesterday as the moving spirit in a plan for a new automobile combination, with a capitalization that may exceed $100,000,000 and that may bring together companies including Moon, Chandler, Gardner, Hupmobile, Jordan, Peerless, and Star. | News Article (text) Publication: The New York Times Topic: William Durant |